FRIENDS OF THE LAX DUNES SCHEDULE VOLUNTEER DAYS ON SEPTEMBER 6, OCTOBER 18

         (Los Angeles – September 4, 2014) On the far west side of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), a 15-year-old Girl Scout is working to earn the Girl Scout Gold Award.  For Ayanna Neal of Girl Scout Troop 10975, this is the highest and most prestigious leadership award one can receive in the Girl Scouts.

         To earn the award Ayanna, who lives with her family in Westchester, is supervising the restoration of a section in the LAX Coastal Dunes through the LAX Adopt-a-Dune program.  With the project almost completed, Ayanna can still use assistance. Upcoming events include Friends of the LAX Dunes (FOLD) Volunteer Day on September 6, and a California Native Plant Society Volunteer Day on October 18. Persons interested in volunteering should RSVP on the FOLD Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-Of-The-LAX-Dunes/639424766144298.

         To date, 40 volunteers under her direction have pulled up 85 large trash bags and an additional 110 cubic yards of invasive non-native plants, enabling the native plants at the site to emerge and thrive.

         To meet the Gold Award requirement for sustainability and lasting change, Ayanna has been making presentations and networking with community organizations and businesses, obtaining sponsorships for her project, and recruiting leaders for a community advisory board for FOLD. Due to her efforts, Verizon, The Southern California Gas Company, and the Rotary Club of Playa Venice Sunrise have donated snacks and beverages for the volunteers; and the California Native Plant Society, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Verizon employees, Playa Venice Sunrise Rotary Club members and other families and individuals have spent weekend mornings on the LAX Dunes pulling weeds and restoring native habitat in the area adopted by the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles.

         The Girl Scout Gold Award, established in 1916, is a national award with significant standards that elevate a girl’s leadership skills, creativity, value, and efforts to make the world a better place. Earning the Gold Award requires spending at least 80 hours planning and implementing a challenging, large-scale project that is innovative, engages others, and has a lasting impact on its targeted community. The prestigious award recognizes Senior and Ambassador Girl Scouts—girls in ninth through 12th grades—for outstanding accomplishments in leadership, community service, career planning, and personal development.

         The LAX Adopt-a-Dune Program is a Los Angeles World Airports program that promotes community partnerships in coastal habitat conservation. The LAX El Segundo Dunes is the largest remaining fragment of the El Segundo Dunes complex, and provides habitat for more than 900 species, some of which cannot be found anywhere else. It is home to the federally endangered El Segundo Blue Butterfly, and other rare plant, animal and insect species.

         Participation in LAX Adopt-a-Dune involves an organization’s commitment to organize 3-4 volunteer visits per year to receive training about coastal dunes restoration; to help care for their adopted coastal dunes area by removing invasive plants, weeds, trash and rubble; and to protect the sensitive resources in their adopted coastal dunes area from harm.

         LAX Dunes Preserve Manager Peggy Nguyen, Environmental Services Division, stated, "Ayanna’s timely involvement, and her leadership and courage have been a blessing for the LAX Adopt-a-Dune Program, which just began earlier this year.  We are grateful to all of her sponsors and volunteers for their contributions, and are thoroughly amazed at her organization-building efforts with the Friends of the LAX Dunes and its advisory board."